A Brief History of the Cbe

not available. S07-S10 Regulatory methods: Recommendations for a suitable method for biofilm disinfectants Stephen Tomasino, Senior Scientist, US EPA-OPP Microbiology Laboratory, Environmental Science Center Abstract not available.not available. S07-S11 Caserna, nanowires, signal vesicles, and flying buttresses: Baroque architecture in biofilms Bill Costerton, Director, Center for Biofilms, School of Dentistry, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA We will report on a program of research that has, as its central premise, the concept that prokaryotic cells are capable of building and using structures whose complexity and sophistication have heretofore been thought to have limited them to eukaryotic organisms. When bacteria are cultivated in multi-cellular communities, which are their actual mode-of-growth in virtually all natural and pathogenic ecosystems, we see structures and processes that have never been seen in liquid cultures of laboratory-adapted strains. Bacteria that accomplish remarkable social feats, like coordinated swarming through soil and complex fruiting body formation, have been shown to communicate by means of signals that are enclosed in membrane vesicles. This mechanism allows the signals to be “addressed,” by means of specific proteins in the membrane vesicles and the delivery of the signal can be delayed until it is “opened” by the recipient. The electrically conductive nanowires that have been discovered to conduct electrical “power” in Shewanella communities, have now been seen to connect bacterial cells in many other communities, including multi-species biofilms.